Five 80s Movies You Gotta See Following the Apocalypse By Rebecca O’Connor
I’ve been thinking a lot about the end of the world lately. It seems a tremendous number of us have been. While every year there is some proclamation of a date that ends all dates, in these last few years the collective conscious seems to be particularly adamant that the end of something is fast coming upon us. I do a weekly roundup of potential doom for National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers and believe me, there is a frightening variety of apocalyptic flavors. The masses are mumbling about pandemics, nuclear world war, economic collapse, food supply collapse, biological weapons, solar flares and, of course, zombies. I remind myself on a weekly basis that we are all going to die.
If the world ends on December 21st, I imagine survivors in the future would look back and believe the last good time was in the 1980s. We greedily and unabashedly had it all in the 80s and our movies reflected it. It wasn’t exactly an idyllic time (what time is?), but the great-grandchildren of our doomsday survivors, scrabbling for existence, would certainly think that’s how it looked. I think they would revel in 80s cinema, looking for the joy and comfort of the simplest human things. They would pine for adventure, friendship, love, pastimes, music and credible heroes. Why wait for the apocalypse? Watch these movies now! (After all, what if you aren’t a survivor?)
5. The Princess Bride (1986)Screenplay by William Goldman, based on his novel
Directed by Rob Reiner
The children of doomsday would be reluctant to engage in fantasy, living in a world where survival will require focusing on daily realities. For the most part they will skip time travel, wizardry, parallel universes and ghost hunters. Fantasy is for those who have time to build full imaginary worlds in their minds. All the same, just like the young Fred Savage reluctantly listening to the remarkable Peter Falk reading this tale of adventure, sword fights and pirates, they too would eventually fall under its spell of true love. The Princess Bride is a movie about the stories we tell each other in order to survive the harsher realities of life, realities like those miserable childhood sick days. It is a story that builds a case for friendship, love and the human spirit. Even lovers at the end of the world will nod and whisper to one another, “As you wish.”
(RUNNER UP: Goonies, 1985)
4. Streets of Fire (1984)Written by Walter Hill and Larry Gross
Directed by Walter Hill
We will miss music after the apocalypse, not the kind sung around the campfire or hummed while we work. We will still make that kind of music in abundance. Songs are as critical to survival as stories. What we will miss is grand, staged, glammed up, screamed out rock opera. Okay, maybe not necessarily rock opera, but the days of stadium rock concerts will be over and we will miss it. Our grandchildren will still be pretending to sing into microphones in front of an undulating crowd, raised lighters aloft. Streets of Fire will fill this space. It is a movie about good overcoming evil, the human need to hold on to our roots and connections and how music is practical magic. Our survivors will cheer for Tom Cody who comes home to rescue old flame Ellen Aim. They will want to be Ellen, because who wouldn’t want to be Diane Lane, but also because she is music embodied. And you can’t capture music, so they will adore that Cody leaves a rock star for a regular girl in the end. The 80s is rife with better movies and lusher soundtracks. Still, after doomsdays comes and goes, rock and roll will survive and the kids will be singing, “Tonight is what it means to be young.”
(RUNNER UP: La Bamba, 1987)
3. Bull Durham (1988)Written and Directed by Ron Shelton
Imagine living in a world where there is no possibility of focusing on your one true passion. There is no time for baseball when what you need to do is find your food or grow it. Growing up after the apocalypse would mean that you would never have the time to focus your talents into being the best at anything. You will have to be a jack-of-all-trades, a survivalist. Those who remain on earth don’t get to grow up to be baseball players. Kids will still dream of it, however. Longing for anything, but not letting the longing consume you will be central to growing up. This makes Bull Durham the perfect baseball movie. Bull Durham as a movie believes in the “Church of Baseball” just as much as Annie does at the beginning of the story. All the same, our hero Crash never makes the majors, even though he is consumed with the chase. The game beats him and we will still love baseball anyway. We will also love both him and Annie all the more when they finally figure out how to hang on, let go and move into the next phase of their lives. They grow up, and our survivors will have to as well. All the same, there will still be sandlot games is spare moments--there will be plenty of sand--and there will still be a church of sticks and rocks and imagined home runs.
(RUNNER UP: The Natural, 1984)
2. The Karate KidWritten by Robert Mark Kamen; Directed by John Avildson
Life will be about discipline, skills and maybe even honor after the apocalypse comes and goes. We will have daily tasks we despise, but at which we must become skilled. We will long for mentors, friends and something more. The world will no longer offer mercy and restraint, but humans will still want to find it. As the brutality of living rises, humanity will become, well, more human. Mr. Miyagi offers the opportunity to believe in a world where mercy and restraint matter. Miyagi has lost everything that meant the most to him, his wife and newborn child, to an unfair world. While he fought in World War II against the Germans, the center of his world died imprisoned in the Japanese Manzanar Internment camp. Miyagi has experienced a personal apocalypse and survived. More than that, despite his pain, he has become someone to strive to emulate. Under his tutelage, Daniel-san is graced with the opportunity to fight when fighting is merited, to embrace mercy, to forgive, and to become something more. We may not be waxing cars, painting houses and sanding floors, but I bet those who find ways around the end of the world will celebrate their every next day, raising a fist and yelling, “Banzai!”
(RUNNER UP: Stand By Me, 1986)
1. Die Hard (1988)Written by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Sousa, based on the novel by Roderick Thorp
Directed by John McTiernan
The human race will always have heroes and we have always interpreted them in thousands of different ways, often depending on the times. Sometimes we dream of gods and magic and impossible rescues. Sometimes we want our saviors to be ordinary men. In the bevvy of heroic 80s movies to choose from following the apocalypse, there is one man our doomsday survivors will fiercely believe in and that man is John McClane. Of course, all heroes’ journeys begin with reluctance, test strength and garner small losses before the big win. Our struggling world, however, will imagine itself barefoot and bleeding, saving a wife it loves (despite a rocky marriage) and kicking ass while somehow maintaining its wry humor. The world will always need McClane, especially when our world becomes Hans Gruber; our survivors will mutter, “[I’m] just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench. The pain in the ass.” Followed by, “Yippee Kai Ay…motherfucker.”
(RUNNER UP: Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
Epilogue
I know everyone has their favorite 80s movies. (No really, I know. Stop yelling at the computer screen because the list is wrong.) In fact, when I asked Facebook what movies they would be watching post-doomsday, the discussion got rather heated. Even confronted with the end of the world, 80s movies fanatics seemed willing to defend their movies to the death. Rather than face my demise through rabid Internet friends, I have listed their picks, including an asterisk for those movies mentioned multiple times. You can mentally add your own. So start prepping for your own post-apocalypse 80s movie party and for your grandchildren’s viewing pleasure. Gather your DVDs or downloads, but do it soon. The end is nigh…
About Last Night
Airplane
Aliens
Always
Amadeus
Back to the Future
Big Trouble in Little China
Blade Runner
Born on the Fourth of July
The Big Chill
The Breakfast Club*
A Christmas Story
Cocoon
Das Boot
Dirty Dancing
E.T.: The Extraterrestrial*
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off*
FullMetal Jacket
Gandhi
Ghostbusters*
Labyrinth
Ladyhawke*
On Golden Pond
Out of Africa*
Platoon
Poltergeist
Predator
Princess Bride
Raging Bull
Raising Arizona
Raiders of the Lost Ark*
Real Genius
Scarface
The Shining*
Spinal Tap
Top Gun*
The Terminator
When Harry Met Sally
Airplane
Aliens
Always
Amadeus
Back to the Future
Big Trouble in Little China
Blade Runner
Born on the Fourth of July
The Big Chill
The Breakfast Club*
A Christmas Story
Cocoon
Das Boot
Dirty Dancing
E.T.: The Extraterrestrial*
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off*
FullMetal Jacket
Gandhi
Ghostbusters*
Labyrinth
Ladyhawke*
On Golden Pond
Out of Africa*
Platoon
Poltergeist
Predator
Princess Bride
Raging Bull
Raising Arizona
Raiders of the Lost Ark*
Real Genius
Scarface
The Shining*
Spinal Tap
Top Gun*
The Terminator
When Harry Met Sally
---------
Rebecca K. O'Connor, Falconer and National Geographic doomsday blogger, is the author of the award-winning memoir Lift published by Red Hen Press. She has published essays and fiction in South Dakota Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Los Angeles Times Magazine, West, divide, Prime Number Magazine, Used Furniture Review and The Rumpus. Her novel, Falcon's Return was a Holt Medallion Finalist for best first novel and she has published numerous reference books on the natural world.